In the personal development world we’re always being told that our thoughts define our reality: “As a man thinketh” and all that. To a large extent it’s true.

But not completely. There are some things that no amount of positive thinking can alter and they aren’t all good. As the philosophers say: shit happens.

The danger with always making bright, positive pictures of the future is that we might forget to plan for some of these problems. Ask yourself: do you have a personal Disaster Recovery Plan? (In business the term Disaster Recovery has been pretty much replaced by Business Continuity but I can’t bring myself to say “Personal Continuity Plan”!)

I strongly believe that it’s worth taking some time out occasionally to consider how you’d cope if life threw one of these curve balls at you. Obviously there are an infinite number possible disasters and you can’t plan for them all; personally I don’t have a contingency plan for being abducted by aliens, you may need one.

You can and possibly should plan for some things which are within the realms of probability. What these are will depend on you but here are a few examples. Consider what you might do if:

• A storm took out your electricity for three days
• Your optician told you that you couldn’t drive any more
• You had to evacuate your house in the middle of the night because of a bomb scare
• The hard disc in your PC crashed
• An epidemic (swine flu?) means that essentials such as bread are in short supply

The answer might be “nothing”: you’d just muddle through. Or it might be that you already have a plan (you do backup your computer, don’t you?). In which case: great!

But if you’re like me there are probably a few simple things you could do to put yourself in a far better position to cope with some of these disasters. Perhaps have an overnight bag packed and ready, keep off-site backups, make sure the freezer is full, etc. That’s the sort of personal disaster recovery I’m talking about.

Don’t become a paranoid pessimist, don’t let disasters weigh on your mind. But perhaps once every few months it might be worth sitting down, thinking through a few possibilities and making a couple of plans.

Hopefully you’ll never need to put them into action.

Photo Credit: nesster (Creative Commons)

I am, of course, a great fan of self-improvement. Anything that helps you get the best out of life without harming others is a Good Thing. For some people the services of a life coach can be a useful tool in the mix.

For some people. But for kids?

According to reports, life coaching for kids is something of a boom industry in Australia. Children as young as five are being signed up for life coaching by their parents at a cost of around AUD150 per hour.

I’ve got very mixed feelings about this. Kids can certainly benefit from early learning of skills such as goal setting, mind mapping, etc. But shouldn’t teaching this be the job of parents and schools?

Life coaching for teenagers, sure – if they’ll listen! – but kids in single figures? Shouldn’t they be allowed to play without worrying about the future? Or is this the perfect time to be teaching them good life habits?

What do you think?